• Hanbaro Kim, Ki Byung Song, Dae Wook Hwang, Jae Hoon Lee, Sang Hyun Shin, Eun Sung Jun, Seong-Ryong Kim, Bong Jun Kwak, Tae Gu Kim, Kwang-Min Park, Young-Joo Lee, and Song Cheol Kim.
• Division of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of Ulsan College of Medicine and Asan Medical Center, 88 Olympic-ro 43 gil, Songpa-gu, Seoul, 05505, Korea.
• Surg Endosc. 2016 Sep 1; 30 (9): 4057-64.

BackgroundPreservation of the spleen in distal pancreatectomy has recently attracted considerable attention. Our current study aimed in the first instance to define the safety of lap-WT in relation to the capacity of this technique to achieve preservation of the spleen and secondly to investigate the effectiveness of a planned lap-WT procedure or early conversion to lap-WT in selected patients with a large tumor attached to the splenic vessels.MethodsAmong 1056 patients who underwent a laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy between January 2005 and December 2014 at our hospital, 122 (24.6 %) underwent lap-WT which were analyzed. The 122 patients were categorized into two groups chronologically (early group: 2005-2012, late group: 2013-2014).ResultsThe median follow-up was 35 months, and the median operation time was 181 min. The median postoperative hospital stay was 7 days, and the median estimated blood loss was 316 ml. Postoperative complications occurred in 9 patients (7.3 %), including 4 patients (3.2 %) with major pancreatic fistula (ISGPF grade B, C). A reoperation to address postoperative bleeding was needed in one patient. During a median follow-up of 35 months, there were no clinical significant splenic infarctions or gastric varices in any case. All patients were observed conservatively. In patients in the late group who underwent the lap-WT, the mean operating time (171 vs. 205 min, p = 0.001) and mean estimated blood loss (232.1 vs. 370.0 ml, p = 0.017) were significantly less than the early group cases who received lap-WT.ConclusionsA lap-WT is a safe treatment strategy in select cases when used as a way of preserving the spleen. When splenic vessel preservation is technically challenging, for example when the tumor is enlarged or is attached to the splenic vessels, planned lap-WT or early conversion to lap-WT may be a feasible option.

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